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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207919">Cobra Chai</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macaron/pseuds/Macaron'>Macaron</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops &amp; Cafés, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Not so much fluff and not so much cooking, Romance, cobra chai drink fast drink hot no sugar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:36:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207919</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macaron/pseuds/Macaron</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Amanda isn't happy when he reopens The Miyagi-tea in their garden. Well, not really in their garden because he has put in a small gazebo and tables and he renovated the outbuilding to make it a fully equipped kitchen, but yes in their garden.  [...]<br/>"Just let go." she says.<br/>He doesn't let go.<br/>What if he can't let go because if he does he won't have anything left? Because this is everything he is."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cobra Chai</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="zw-paragraph">Of course he talked to Amanda about Johnny. It was at the beginning of their relationship, that moment between favorite movie/book/do you really like avocado in your uramaki? and yeah I went on a date with my teacher when I was at college. They were eating something in Daniel's car after a night out and laughing and talking about when they were young (it was that time of their life where they really joked about being old, with the lightness you have only when you aren't really old) and she was telling him the story of this girl who tried to steal her boyfriend and of course Daniel wanted to look cool and a little dangerous like her but the only story that he knew that in his head could make him look like a badass was Johnny's story.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">So of course he talked to Amanda about Johnny.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">He told her the story of how when he was just a kid he moved to Reseda, with his mom and no friends, he met this girl who was cute and he liked and how she had an ex boyfriend who was a lot bigger and cooler than Daniel, who wasn't blonde and badass and pretty but skinny and small,  and who didn't really like him dating his ex girlfriend.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">He told her how at that time he was very interested in preparing cakes and beverages for the merenda (he said really "merenda", because his name his LaRusso and he has something Italian in him, and okay because he wanted to look exotic and mysterious) because his father always loved try different kind of coffee and it was something they did together when he was still alive. He told her  his new school organized a charity sale where students could run a banquet to sell sweets, coffee, drinks as if they had their own bar or cafè and how at the end of the day the stand that made the most money would win a prize. Daniel laughed with Amanda for the initiative, joked that the other schools in the area had a Karate tournament or something like that and instead they had a student coffe shop contest. And then he told her again about Johnny. He told her about how Johnny went to a coffee shop class with a cruel chef and how he and Daniel had started to be rivals in this too, not just for a girl (as if the girl was ever important). He also joked about the chef, Kreese, because he and Amanda were still in that phase of the relationship where you joke about your fears but don't talk about them.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">He told her about the times Johnny bullied him, because of the girl, because of the coffee shop contest, because Daniel wasn't really able to shut the fuck up, and how meeting Mr. Miyagi, a Japanese pastry and tea expert, had literally saved his life. He told Amanda about the hours he spent trying to prepare the right tea (leaves on, leaves off as Mr. Miyagi loved to repeat to teach him the right time to infuse the leaves in the water), the perfect cake, to balance the sugar at the perfection. He told about how Mr. Miyagi tried to teach him how to respect the time of the kitchen, to wait until a dough is ready, to listen what food tells you and mostly to listen what you want to tell with food (and that what the hardest part for a kid that didn't really know anything about himself). He told her a lot about Mr. Miyagi and when he did fantasized about letting her meet him one day. He didn't tell her that actually part of him would have liked to go into the afternoon school that Johnny attended, the Cobra Chai, not because of the very mean chef who scared him to death or because of the recipes he made but for Johnny, because all that Johnny did seemed so far from what Daniel was and so charming. Instead he told her about the day of the charity sale, how the two coffee shops were practically equal, how the students wandered around the Cobra Chai where Johnny's friends repeated "Drink fast, drink hot, no sugar!" like a mantra. He told her how at some point some customer had started to bring back his tea because it was salty and he discovered that someone (Johnny? Of course it was Johnny, but was it really his idea? ) had put the salt in the sugar jar to make him lose. And of course he told her the happy ending of the story, of how thanks to the teachings of Mr. Miyagi he had managed to perfectly balance sugar and salt and create a cake and a coffee with salted caramel on it to be able to use the jar of sugar ruined by salt and that he had won the competition with that recipe. He didn't tell her about Johnny who brings him the trophy telling him he was good, alright and above all he didn't tell her how many nights he spent after thinking about it. It wasn't part of the story, she wouldn't understand. Even he didn't understand at the time.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">Amanda had cheered at the right time, and laughed and was scandalized by the atrocities of the Cobra Chai (even though she said she wanted to try that famous chai latte) and then told him "You must have cared a lot about that boy. I've been with a lot of guys in high school and college but some I don't even remember faces, let alone talk about them like that after a long time. " Daniel shrugged and downplayed. "It was just a good story, a funny one. It wasn't about a boy." It was just a good story, the boy had nothing to do with it. <em>JohnnyJohnnyJohnny</em>.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">Except everything was about the boy. Amanda knows because she is a lot smarter than him. And he knows when he sees Johnny Lawrence again at his dealership. He looks older but not old, he looks tired. Johnny never looked tired when they were kids, he always had some life in him, some energy in him, like someone who can't really be broken (can he? Daniel never asked, even after the competition, even after he saw Kreese trying to kill him. He just assumed, never asked. He should have asked). Daniel doesn't look old or tired when he sees himself in the mirror, his wife's friends (because Daniel doesn't really have friends) always said he looks at least 5 years younger than he is,  but he feels that way until he meets Johnny again.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Johnny doesn't seem excited to see him and Daniel doesn't really know why because he is so happy. He says to himself that he is because he is strapped for cash and Daniel just paid to his car or because he made fun of him in front of his colleagues telling the story of the salted caramel coffee that he should have keep for himself (why didn't he? Why can't he ever shut up?). Because really there arent' any other reasons. They had some fights but Johnny gave him the trophy, everything was good. (Was it for the girl? Daniel never really cared so much about the girl. Not the way he cared about tea, Mr. Miyagi, Johnny). They weren't friends but they weren't really enemies. They aren't. They shouldn't. Daniel's problems were mostly with Kreese, with the way he ran the Cobra Chai, the way he treated the students. They shouldn't.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">When on his way to work he passes a small coffe shop, which honestly seems to be falling apart, and reads the "Cobra Chai" sign, Daniel realizes that maybe in the end he isn't so happy to have seen Johnny again. He turns off the car and sits silently for a few minutes while a boy his daughter's age stumbles across the room and drops some cups on the floor. He hears Johnny's voice yelling at the boy and he sees the kid runs probably to the kitchen, Daniel turns on the car and drives away. He doesn't have the slightest intention of going in, he hasn't the slightest intention of getting dragged into this story again. He has his own family, his dealership, the tea and coffee (and Johnny) are part of a past that he has lived great without thinking about for thirty years (except he always thought about it).</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">Why did Johnny have to reopen the Cobra chai? Why? To teach kids that the kitchen is a battlefield like Kreese did with them? Cooking, baking is attention, it's balance, it's made up of nuances, not extremes. You can't yell at kids to make a too spicy sugarless chai tea and fuck customers who don't like it. You can't force the taste, you can educate it. He is so angry (and he feels so alone).</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"I'm not Kreese" Johnny says. And it's true. He doesn't look like Kreese. He looks powerful, not scary. "I just want to teach the kids how to make the right chai latte, how to have the confidence to be badass in a kitchen and not be afraid of a one star review on yelp. I don't want to scare them but I don't want them to be afraid. " Daniel thinks about how Mr. Miyagi tried to teach him how to find the balance, maybe there is an equilibrium even in what Johnny teaches, even in the way he runs Cobra chai. But there is no balance in Daniel's heart, not now, not when he is still so scared.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"I'm not going anywhere, LaRusso." Johnny says. Guess what? Daniel thinks. I am. And run away.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">The thing is that with Mr. Miyagi he really learned how to make the perfect tea, how to listen what the leaves say, how to find an equilibrium between all the ingredients on a recipe, but at some point Daniel forgot how to do that on himself. He just stuck a part on himself under the carpet and tried to live with his better one. And now he feels lost and he doesn't know how to be whole again.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">"The food changes all the time, a dough can grow in a night and you still don't believe that people can change." Johnny yells at him.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"The Cobra chai latte is really good. The kids are a little annoying and the one with the hair shouted at an old woman that was complaining because her chocolate tarte had too much salt flakes but nothing serious. They looked fine and the  chai latte is really good. " Amanda says and when he looks scandalized she just shrugs. "You knew I really wanted to try that, it's not a big deal. A girl can have a chai latte, it's not cheating for god's sake. And anyway you aren't even cooking since Anthony was born."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">"I think Sam likes Miguel." Amanda says. And "He is a sweet kid, just because he works at Cobra Chai doesn't mean he is a bully."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">She says "Just let go."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">When he meets Robby at the dealership the kid asks him "Is it true that you won the Reseda coffee bar contest with the highest takings?" and then "Could you teach me?" Robby snorts when Daniel forces him to whip five liters of fresh cream by hand. "Why should I do that? There are mixers for that!" but then when it's time to incorporate the egg whites to the dough and he manages to do it perfectly, his eyes light up and Daniel feels happy. Mr. Myagi would be so proud.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Later, when everything goes to hell, he wants to kick himself for not seeing it. For not having seen in that kid Johnny's same eyes, the same strength, the same adrenaline. For trusting again in someone who didn't deserved, who didn't care about him.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"He is just a kid, Daniel. A good one. He didn't want to hurt you. Not everything is about you and Johnny. Just let go. "</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">He doesn't let go.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">He thinks about Johnny all the time. There was a day, just before he found out about Robby when they went out to drink together (at the midday! Something not really LaRussossy. Johnny's word, not his) and for a couple of hours they forgot that they should hate each other.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Johnny said "I was a lonely child in a big house that wasn't my home and with a stepfather who spent all day telling me I was a failure because I didn't eat vegetables or because I didn't like tea in the morning when I met Cobra Chai. Cooking gave me strength. Kreese had so many flaws but he taught me to believe in my taste. That's what I would like to teach kids; just because a customer tells you that a chai latte is bitter doesn't mean it's bitter. It can mean he's a jerk and has a shitty tastes. They don't have to be afraid of cooking. "</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel thought the kitchen was the only place he wasn't afraid of as a kid. He wondered how many things they had in common. He wanted to ask him "Could we have become friends if I hadn't been in Miyagi tea and you in Cobra Chai? If I had met you first and then Ali? Would you have liked me? Because I liked you so much."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Johnny said "What they tell you you can't cook if you're angry is bullshit. That food tastes good only if it's made with love." Johnny said imitating the voice of some television chef. Daniel laughed. "Bullshit. I've always cooked angry. I went into the kitchen angry and that anger became something different, it became energy, it became a dish."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel couldn't help but think about what would become of him if he allowed himself to be whole, if he allowed himself to let go of his anger, his feelings instead of repressing them and letting himself be consumed inside. Maybe he would have been less angry, maybe he would have been happier. Maybe they would be happy together. Maybe they would have been in love.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Johnny said "We should go cook together!"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Sure, like in Rocky III when Apollo and Rocky fight at the end ..."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"C'mon man, just once! It will be fun! " He looked so excited.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Johnny I'm drunk, I'd end up setting fire to myself or the house!"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"No you wouldn't do it because I'm with you."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"><em>I'm here with you I'm there with you I'm there with you. You are all right LaRusso.</em> He was so fucked.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Come on, don't be a pussy, Danielle. Maybe we'll find out that we cook very well together. I might even become your sous chef."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel always wonders what would have happened if they hadn't met Robby at home. He imagines saying yes right away. He imagines all possible scenarios. He imagines a coffee shops together. He imagines create recipes together, kids running around the place screaming, fighting over those who forgot to order the lapsang. He imagines fucking immediately after closing the coffee shop, with the last dishwasher still to load because you can't wait to go home, because you like each other too much.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel thinks about Johnny all the time.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">
  
</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Amanda isn't happy when he reopens The Miyagi-tea in their garden. Well, not really in their garden because he has put in a small gazebo and tables and he renovated the outbuilding to make it a fully equipped kitchen, but yes in their garden.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">One thing is to teach a boy to make the perfect tea and cakes in the kitchen of your house during the weekend, and a different thing is to have strangers in your backyard and t can't even go swimming in your pool. And always have flour, milk, yeast and a handful of kids with dirty hands around your house. "I'm not doing it for the money." Daniel says"We only ask customers for a small offer to pay for the ingredients." Amanda isn't happy when he reopens Miyagi tea in the garden without even earning anything, when he stays late at night teaching some kids how to make madeleines or when Sam comes home with a burn on her arm from the oven.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Just let go." she says.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">He doesn't let go.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">What if he can't let go because if he does he won't have anything left? Because this is everything he is.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">
  
</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">When Amanda files for divorce, he isn't even angry. When she points out that he didn't even try, that he got stuck, that he stopped focusing on work and his marriage to just go to that stupid tea shop. When she accuses him of being responsible for his daughter's burns and probably all the ills in the world, he is just exhausted.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"But why weren't you able to let go?" Amanda asks him and something in Daniel breaks. He will never meet someone like her and she will meet someone better than him.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"You know how I am, you know me." He tells her.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Amanda sighs. "No I don't know you, you never let me."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel thinks about Johnny.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0"> </p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Cobra chai looks odd from the parking lot. There is only one light on but it's to early to be already closed.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Sam told him that after Miguel's accident things aren't going well at the coffee shop, that some of the boys have chosen to leave, that Miguel says he doesn't know how to help Mr. Lawrence.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel walks in.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"I'm closed." Johnny shouts coming out of the kitchen.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"No you are not." Daniel sits on a chair. He realizes that he never let himself look around. The place is a mess but it has something.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Well, I am for you." But there is a spark in his eyes.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"I read you have excellent Chai latte, hot and with no sugar." Daniel says</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"We don't have excellent reviews." Johnny snorts picking up an apron left abandoned on a table.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Maybe I could write one."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"What the fuck do you want, LaRusso?"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"Daniel."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"What?"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"My name is Daniel."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"What the fuck do you want, Danielle?"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"I want to order a Cobra Chai, hot, fast, no sugar. And I want to cook with you."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">Johnny lets out a sigh and Daniel doesn't know if he's about to laugh or punch him. Probably both would be okay for him at this point.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">He turns and starts walking back to the kitchen.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel gets up and stops him at the door.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"God, you're so annoying" but Daniel knows he is lying.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"I want to say yes."</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"To what?" He has never felt so alive.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">"To everything." Their faces are so close that one movement would be enough to collide, to kiss.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Johnny raises an eyebrow. "Everything, really?"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">Daniel has never been more sure of anything. It has been all his life.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph heading0">He says. "The only moments I felt like myself were when I was fighting with you." and "Everything"</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph">Johnny kisses him.</p>
<p>"Let's start with cooking something."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was watching the s3 trailer for the millionth time and my bitter half asked "Are they saying Cobra Chai?" and then we started the jokes about a coffee shop where Johnny prepared the Cobra Chai latte and then this story was born, which in my head must have been very ironic and crack but instead came more intimate. I just care a lot about food and these idiots.<br/>As usual, English is not my first language and I write it like Johnny uses twitter. Hint: bad.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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